Yoga Poses for Running (Video)

Yoga is a great complement for running, both in the breath work which is called Pranayama and also with the physical part called Asanas. Find out about yoga poses for running with help from one of the country's leading fitness experts and celebrity trainers in this free video clip.

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Hi, I'm Juliet Kaska and this is yoga poses for running. Yoga is a great complement for running, both in the breath work which is called Pranayama and also with the physical part called Asanas. The breath work of yoga helps to deepen the use of the diaphragm which will over time help the runner for their endurance and the Asanas help to stretch out and to strengthen the hip flexors, the thighs, the glutes, as well as the lower back all areas of the body that tend to get tight on a runner. Our first yoga pose for runners is called lizard. It's very similar to a runner's lunge stretch. We're going to put our right foot forward and bring our knee just slightly behind our heel and then stretch the left leg back behind you with the knee resting on the ground and the top of the left foot pressing down into your mat. Press the hips forward until you feel a stretch across the front of the left quad and hip flexor. Keep the abs drawn in and depending on your level of flexibility is where your hands are going to go. So we do want to get both of our hands onto the inside of our right thigh and again depending on your flexibility you'll be able to walk down, all the way hopefully to your forearms and once you get there, you're going to press out through the crown of the head and lengthen your spine, looking forward like this. Our second yoga pose for runners is called Cow Head and it's an amazing stretch to open up your hips which of course get very tight when we are running. So what you are going to do is take your bottom leg, here the right leg and bend it in so the heel is resting towards your flute, cross your left leg over top and we want to stack the knees until they are right over each other like this. The heels start back by the glutes and we sit up nice and tall. As our flexibility grows, we're going to creep the feet out to the side, keeping the feet flexed, eventually getting them all the way up until they are in line with the knees like this, and of course keeping the knees stacked the whole time and another variation is to bring the arms behind your back and clasp the hands together.